Thursday, 28 August 2014

Achtung! Cthulhu to become a movie

Image: Modiphius Entertainment

There haven't been many successful adaptations of Lovecraftian stories, but there could be something great on the horizon with the news that Modiphius's successful roleplaying game Achtung! Cthulhu is becoming a film.

The publisher has signed director Raine McCormack and scriptwriter Dirk Vandereyken, two relative unknowns in the movie industry, to realise the Second World War Lovecraftian setting on the big (or small) screen, which will be called Achtung! Cthulhu: The Secret War.

"In my mind, Achtung! Cthulhu has never been just a game," comments Modiphius Entertainment founder Chris Birch, the gaming entrepreneur behind the Achtung! Cthulhu universe. "The writings of H.P. Lovecraft have inspired a massive backstory, set against the backdrop of World War Two. This isn't just another 'weird war' tale but a deep-rooted, millennia-old conflict, in which mankind is but a mere pawn. It lends itself extremely well to different media, so I know that both H.P. Lovecraft and Achtung! Cthulhu fans are going to be excited to see what we have planned."

“This may very well be the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on,” says script writer Dirk Vandereyken, who has been playing the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game since he was 11. “Several film directors have taken a stab at making H.P. Lovecraft’s vision come to life, but they haven’t always been respectful of the source material. I’ve been a Lovecraft fan and roleplayer for as long as I can remember and I can guarantee we won’t be changing any of the canon out there for our film’s sake – the stories are so good that the Cthulhu Mythos simply doesn’t need to be tweaked."

I had the pleasure of playing Achtung! Cthulhu with Chris Birch not too long ago and personally I love the setting. So best of luck to them - it seems like the film's in good hands.